in council
with the Consular Board, and a _modus vivendi_ was agreed upon, which
was rejected the next morning by the President.

The representations of the Consuls had, however, their effect; and when
the council met again on April 6, Baron von Pilsach was found to have
entirely modified his attitude. The bridge over the Vaisingano was
conceded, the sum of $3,000 offered to the council was increased to
$9,000, about one-half of the existing funds; the Samoan Government,
which was to profit by the customs, now agreed to bear the expenses of
collection; the President, while refusing to be limited to a specific
figure, promised an anxious parsimony in the Government expenditure,
admitted his recent conduct had been of a nature to irritate the
councillors, and frankly proposed it should be brought under the notice
of the Powers. I should not be a fair reporter if I did not praise his
bearing. In the midst of men whom he had grossly deceived, and who had
recently insulted him in return, he behaved himself with tact and
temper. And largely in consequence his _modus vivendi_ was accepted
under protest, and the matter in dispute referred without discussion to
the Powers.

I would like to refer for one moment to my former letter. The Manono
prisoners were solemnly sentenced to six months' imprisonment; and, by
some unexplained and secret process, the sentence was increased to one
of banishment. The fact seems to have rather amused the Governments at
home. It did not at all amuse us here on the spot. But we sought
consolation by remembering that the President was a layman, and the
Chief Justice had left the islands but the day before. Let Mr.
Cedercrantz return, we thought, and Arthur would be come again. Well,
Arthur is come. And now we begin to think he was perhaps an approving,
if an absent, party to the scandal. For do we not find, in the case of
the municipal treasury, the same disquieting features? A decision is
publicly delivered, it is acted on for a year, and by some secret and
inexplicable process we find it suddenly reversed. We are supposed to be
governed by English law. Is this English law? Is it a law at all? Does
it permit a state of society in which a citizen can live and act with
confidence? And when we are asked by natives to explain these
peculiarities of white man's government and white man's justice, in what
form of words are we to answer?

_April_ 12.

Fresh news reaches me; I have once again t